Introducing Swipecast, the 'Uber for models'

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The face of the modelling industry may just be about to change – and it’s all thanks to an app that’s been dubbed ‘Uber for models’.

Swipecast has been developed by entrepreneur and model agency founder Peter Fitzpatrick in a bid to overcome the inefficiencies of the modelling world.

Talking to Business of Fashion, he said: “Your typical model works one or two days per week. Agents have favourites and certain girls fall through the cracks. Wouldn't it be great if there was a way for a model to network and access opportunities in real time, in a safe environment?”

The app allows photographers, brands, designers and stylists to bypass model agencies and cast a model directly from a portfolio hosted on the app. This, in turn, means that models can avoid the usual 33 per cent commission syphoned off by an agency and will instead sacrifice just 10 per cent of their fee and take home 90 per cent. Additionally, Swipecast processes payment within one to two days, while it can take up to 90 days for a model to receive payment via a traditional agency.

A video posted by Swipecast (@swipecast) on Aug 12, 2015 at 7:08am PDT

Swipecast is not intended to replace model agencies, but Fitzpatrick believes it will be valuable to young designers and creatives who can’t afford typical agency rates and that it will also help models who don’t have agencies but still want to work.

“But the reality is that there are thousands and thousands of models that don’t have agencies,” he says. “You also have models looking for an agency, say in New York, and their mother agency isn’t helping them much.” What’s more, many agencies ignore jobs that pay less than $1,000 per day.

Photographer Ellen von Unwerth and Purple magazine founder Olivier Zahm have both signed up for the app.